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It’s relevant, if not important, to begin any discussion of The Age of Innocence, by explaining why Edith Wharton’s novel makes sense as a Martin Scorsese project. Society in 19th century New York was as concerned with structure, power, control, and honor as the world of organized crime. In both worlds, one mistake can lead to expulsion. While there is none of Scorsese’s trademark violence in The Age of Innocence, there is a lot of backstabbing.
The lush cinematography marks this as a Scorsese effort, however, and it splashes before our eyes from the opening shots in an opera. Just as the actors in the opera they are watching, the people we meet early in the film have their lives on display and are being judged. Our focus is on Newland Archer (Daniel day-Lewis, who Scorsese has kept on reserve for historical epics ever since) and his lovely fiancé May Welland (Winona Ryder). They are engaged but are they in love? Or, are they, like the opera actors, putting on the appearance of being in love?
As one of the cinema’s top masters, Scorsese allows us to reach an answer through witty introspections into the upper-class. He is particularity sharp in interpreting how marriage could assure a position in high society, but not respect necessarily. The Age of Innocence is like Gossip Girl 1870, because it demonstrates how little the pretensions of New York high society have changed over the years.
The matriarch of this world is Mrs. Mingott (Miriam Margolyes), squatting like a mob boss in her cushiony parlor surrounded by toy dogs and possessing a blunt lip. She breaks Victorian norm and allows people into her bedroom, which is lucky for us since each room in the Beaufort mansion has a unique personality. During the visual tour of the mansion, there is an obvious comment on gender mores. While the subject of marriage is discussed through Joanne Woodward’s narration, the camera stops at a painting of a young woman being captured by Native Americans.
Bringing change to this stuffy world is Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), May’s cousin who became a fallen woman after returning from a Henry Jamesian stay in Europe with an acquired set of unconventional values and behaviors. To hear the Wellands and their friends the Beauforts talk about her, we would never guess that Olenska’s husband, a Polish count, left her for a prostitute (but didn’t divorce her, in keeping with society’s mores) before she moved in with a male lawyer companion. The Welland’s perception of the Countess is based on a still extant form of sexism. Even though her husband cheated on her, Olenska is seen as a whore for living with another man.
Newland Archer represents a step toward the modern forward-thinking man. It was inevitable that someone like him would eventually bust through the oppressive norms of such a passive-aggressive world. It was not a society in which anyone with the slightest sense of practicality could live in.
Countess Olenska provides Newland with the opportunity to realize his latent dreams of breaking away. She is the only person who truly understands him. It took someone like Countess Olenska who can see beyond the narrow walls of this pretentious society to see through Newland Archer. She lives alone, which was very rare for a woman of her times, and is frank in her behavior. She is well aware of her reputation around town. This becomes evident when she opens up to Newland about the pains she has been through and continues to suffer under the critical eyes of her environment.
Newland starts to fall for Olenska but doesn’t really realize it. In his mind, he is still in love with May. He is caught between two worlds, admiring Olenska’s freedom but still warning her against divorcing her husband, a move that would be the kiss of death to her already blackened reputation. The iris around the two of them as they converse at the theater in a subsequent scene indicates how detached they’ve become from the people that surround them. There is an attraction between them but neither one acknowledges it.
Newland resigns to the fact that he is bound to May, and so will never act on his attraction to Olenska. Scorsese handles their suppressed relationship really well. Look at the scene in which they stand hand to hand looking out of Olenska’s bedroom window. Scorsese teases with the suggestion that they are about to have sex, but he is simply doing a really good job of bringing their inner thoughts to the surface. Scorsese knows that a man and a woman of their standing would not go beyond holding hands in the 1870s and so he is smart enough to bring the scene to a proper stop.
Of course, Newland flirts with the possibility of leaving with Olenska, but that won’t happen. The grasp of social restrictions is too strong, even for such a progressive man. Instead, Newland gets his wish to marry May early. Interestingly, this happens just as he professes his love to Olenska and can no longer see marrying May. But he still does, of course, as this is what society dictates. Their marriage represents Newland Archer choosing to conform rather than stirring up trouble. After this, Olenska becomes something of a ghost, and a painful memory of the life that Newland could have lived.
The Age of Innocence is an artistic film in the most joyous sense of the word, probably Scorsese’s most traditionally beautiful work yet. Performance wise, the film is a tour de force, with great performances from all. It also carries a bag full of cinematic tricks up its sleeves, which it employs in the most delicate of ways.
The weather outside, for instance, is set to match the moods. Meanwhile, the costumes and scenery are sights to behold in themselves. This is a film in which the visuals play as significant a role as the single most important line in the script, “He had been dead for months.”
For all of its pride, showmanship, and grandeur, the world in which Newland and Olenska reluctantly inhabit, lives in coded messages. Nothing is ever stated outright. Not even after everyone (including May) catches on to the affair between Newland and Olenska, are direct accusations made.
Scorsese’s single most effective sequence in the film is his depiction of the passage of thirty years. The world outside changes (there are now automobiles and telephones) but within the walls of the Welland estate, things largely remain the same. May was never able to see past her world.
The best decision Scorsese made was not to impose modern sensibilities in the way that so many period pieces, like Titanic for instance, have a habit of doing. As much as we would like for Newland Archer to go off with Countess Olenska, Scorsese makes clear why that would never happen. They lived amongst a society determined to live in the Age of Innocence.

L’amour interdit, le triangle amoureux, la vision de la haute-société de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, tels sont les sujets abordés dans cette oeuvre de Scorsese. Dans un film presque parfaitement maîtrisé – on regrettera des passages et un conclusion un peu trop longues – le cinéaste dépeint l’hypocrisie du milieu des gens distingués, faisant ou défaisant la vie de quelqu’un. Le personnage de Archer devra tout au long du film choisir entre ce qui est correct pour la société ou écouter ce que son coeur désire. On appréciera au passage la voix off, apportant des précisions judicieuses aux moments opportuns. Pour incarner Archer, on retrouve Daniel Day-Lewis dont la composition est en finesse mais est presque éclipsé par l’étonnante Michelle Pfeiffer. S’ajoute pour achever le trio la jeune Winona Ryder. L’oeuvre met en avant les doutes d’un homme dans une société qui ne lui convient guère, son envie de liberté souvent refoulée et la passion déchirante et réciproque envers une femme. Le tout avec une mise en scène de Scorses aux effets réfléchis et à la superbe photographie.

I really think this is one of Scorsese’s most under-rated movies. It’s my favourite Daniel Day Lewis performance. He holds back so much it becomes so painful to watch him. Not only is his performance coming from the inside-out, he has a certain grace to all his movements. Grace… This movie has so much grace. It’s like a moving Degas painting sometimes. It’s wonderful. I wish Scorsese would do more costume dramas. He’s a real talent for dealing with worlds where characters have to suppress their emotions. Really is an under-rated movie.